Archive for April, 2008

Never will I ever crucify a politician for making true statements. I’ll begin by mentioning that I’m an Obama supporter, but would gladly vote for Hillary in the general election (assuming she doesn’t win by some odd method like counting the delegates from Michigan). I praise Obama for running a cleaner (although it dirties by the day) campaign, although I respect both candidates. Now that that’s established, 3 true things everyone is wigging out over.

Point 1: Ferraro and related substance

We all remember the Clinton camp member Ferraro. She was forced to resign upon noting that Mr. Obama would not be the democratic front-runner if he was not black. She made the fatal mistake of suggesting that race is a critical factor in the election.

Among those who voted for Hillary in New York, 85% identified gender as the most important issue.

In Georgia, where Obama won (67% to 31%), he captured 88% of the black vote.

Now…is it possible that the fact that Obama regularly scores 20% higher among black voters then overall a coincidence? Yes. Is it a coincidence? No.

In short, a large part of Obamas success is because he is black. Not that being black was ever probobly helpful to him in the early stages of his life (as he pointed out as a response to Ferraro), but right now, in this moment, it helps. The same goes for Hillary. A student at Clark University, I was treated to Hilary coming to speak at my school before Super Tuesday. The introducing speaker who went before her ended with the following little snippet, which I shall now loosely paraphrase. “Yesterday, when I dropped my daughter off for 2nd grade, I was able to say, for the first time ever ‘when you grow up you can be anything you want, even President of the United States'” to which of course there was much applause and cheering and joy.

So, we’re all allowed to cheer because we may have the first Woman President; but we’re not allowed to point out that part of Hillary’s support comes from the fact that she’s a woman.

Point 2: The Reverend

His comment was, in essence, that 100 years of violent aggressive foreign policy that smacks of disregard for civilian life may have earned us a few enemies, and that we shouldn’t be surprised that someone hit back in a less-then-gentlemanly way. Do I think that was the fault of the people in the towers that day that they died? No. But I don’t think he believes that either. What he believes is that 9/11 was long in the making, and we didn’t behave in the best way to avoid it. This is true.

Point 3: Bitter people

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.”

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I’m waiting for the offensive part. Guess what, it sounds rather on-the-mark to me. Apparently people in Penn find this offensive. Guess what…I’m really bitter and frustrated. Polls seem to suggest that most people nationwide are frustrated with the Federal Government. Now, I suppose Mr. Obama suggests that they aren’t dealing with their frustration in the most constructive way possible, but my guess is that he’s quite correct with his remarks.

The interesting part of all of this is that when I talk to friends about these remarks, they all take stance that “well, of course those remarks are true, but they’re not allowed to say them.” No no no, a thousand times no. We’ve stumbled through 8 years of a President who babbles nothing but lies and half-truths, I will NOT crucify the current Presidential candidates for making true but “not PC” remarks.